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GEN. WILLIAM SCDDDER STRYKER 



Adjutant-General of New Jersey, 1867-1900; Pres- ^ 

IDENT OF THE NeW JeRSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETV; 

President of the Society of the Cincinnati in 
New Jersey; Author of ''The Battles of Trei;- 
TON and Princeton," etc. 



A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE. 



By William Nelson. 



paterson^ n. j. 

The Paterson History Club. 

1901. 



• » • • . 



GEN. WILLIAM SCUDDER STRYKER 



Adjutant-General OF New Jersey, 1867-1900; Pres- 
ident OF the New Jersey Historical Society; 
President of the Society of the Cincinnati in 
New Jersey; Author of "The Battles of Tren- 
ton AND Princeton," etc. 



A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE. 



By William Nelson. 



paterson, n. j. 

The Paterson History Club. 

1901. 



,5 



One Hundred Copies Printed. 

Reprinted (with some additions) from The New York 
Genealogical and Biographical Record, for January, 
1901. p^ 

Author. 

4 Ag'08 



GEN. WILLIAM SCUDDER SIRYKER. 



The Strvkeis are amono- ihe oldest and best known 
families in Holland, one branch having been located near 
Tiie Hague for eight centuries, and another living near 
Rotterdam. Many ancient tombs of the family, with 
sculptured arms surmounted jjy a ducal coronet, rre to- be 
seen in the old cathedral of St. Bavon, Haarlem. 

Jan Strycker came to New Amsterdam in 1652, and 
two years later removed to Midv/out (now Flatbush). 
Long Island, where for nearly twenty years he was the 
Chief Magistrate, and held various positions, civil and 
military, until his death in 1697, at the age of eigthy-two. 
His son, Pieter Strycker (1653-1741), in' 1710 bought a 
tract of four thousand acres in Somerset County, New 
Jersey, on which two' of his sons and four of his grand- 
sons settled (1730- 1 740). One of these grandsons (son 
of Jan, 1684-1770) was Abraham (1715-1777), who re- 
moved to Nev; Jersey in the spring of 1740. He was the 
father of Cnristoffel H, Strycker (1761-1805) whose son 
Thomas J. Stryker (1800-1872) was one of the best 
known and most respected citizens of Trenton, where he 
held many public and private places of trust. He married 
a daughter of John Scuddc-r, a descendant of Thomas 
Scudder, who is mentioned in the aniials ot Salein, Mass., 
as early as 1653.* 

Of this mingled Holland and New England ancestry, 
settled in America for two and a half centuries, was Wil- 
liam Scadder Stryker. born in Trenton, June 6. 1838. 

♦See upnealogical Record of the Strvcker Familv. compiled 'ay 
William S. Stryker. Camden. 1887. .Svo.. pp. 112. Printed for private 
distribution among members of the familv onlv. 



He was graduated at Princeton College in 1858, and im- 
mediately began studying law, but when President Lin- 
coln's first call for troops came, the young law student 
abandoned everything in his eagerness to respond to his 
country's summc«ns, and enlisted as a private, April 16, 
1 86 1, his company being ordered en special duty the same 
day. He served three months at Lhis time. In the sum- 
mer of 1S62 he assisted in the organization of the Four- 
teenth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers. He was com- 
mission'^d Paymaster, wath the rank of Major, February 
19, 1863, and ordered to Hilton Head, S. C. A service 
more congenial to nis ma.rtial spirit was opened to him 
when, July 8. 1863, he was made Major and Aide-de- 
Camp on the staff of Major-General Quincy A. Gillmore, 
then in command of the Tenth Army Corps, in the vicin- 
ity of Hilton Head, S. C. Here he participated in the 
capture of Morris Island, July 10, 1863, and in the as- 
saults on Fort Wagner. At a critical moment in one of 
these engagements he was dispatched with orders to s 
distant poiiit. The way was swept by a storm of shot 
and shell from the rebel batteries, bu<- the gallant young 
officer fearlessly galloped through it all, delivered his mes- 
sage, and returned in safety. Thousands or both sides 
watched breathlessly that dauntless rider. Years after, 
at an Army reunion, an officer told General StryVer that 
he and others who beheld with straining eyes that won- 
derful braving of almost certain death ne\'er believed it 
possible that hz couid win his way through the fierce hail 
that hurtled across his path. Another fearful experience 
was the bloody night attack on Fort Wagner, on July 18, 
1863. He was one of the few surviving officers who had 
the pleasure of witnessing the unveiling, thir*-y years 
after, of the superb statue erected in Boston in iiemorv 
of Col. Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the van of that at- 



5 

tack with his heroic colored regiiTient. On accoimt of 
iUness contracted in the ardncus service in the sieg-e of 
Charleston, Major Stryker was transferred to the Fay- 
master's Department at Cclumhus, Ohiou On the way he 
stopped at Washingto-n to deliver messages to the Presi- 
dent. Mr. Lincoln was greaty interested in the hand- 
some young officer, and hegan to question him about some 
of his experiences and obsen'ations, when suddenly he 
saw him reel in faintness. He caught him in his arms, 
laid him on a lounge, sent for and applied restoratives, 
and ministered to him with all the tender sympathy of a 
woman, until he recovered sufficiently tc i^t.urn to his 
hotel. Major Stryker retired from the army in June, 1866, 
with the rank of Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel, and again 
took up his residence in his native city. He was appointed 
Adjutant-General of New Jersey, April 12, 1867, with 
the rank of Brigadier General, and, by successive appoint- 
ments, of various governors of different politics, he was 
continued until his death in the office he so highly adorned. 
In 1874 he was commissioned Brevet-Ma jor-Ger.eral, for 
long and meritorious service as Adjutant-General of the 
State. 

Immediately upon assuming his position as Adjutant- 
General, he set about perfecting the war records of New 
Jersey, and in 1872 issued a stout octavo volume con- 
taining lists of officers and men of New Jersey in the 
Revolutionary War — the pioneer work of the kind in 
America. In 1876 h«- brought out two large quarto 
volumes of 1930 pages, giving the rosters and details of 
service of Jerseymen in the Civil War. For many years 
he had been revising and adding to the RevoJutionary 
lists, and had also compiled records of the service of Jer- 
seymen in the Colonial Wars, the Whiskey Insurrection 
of 1794, the War of 1812. and the Mexican War, all of 



which he hoped to have printed this year. In 1898 he 
pnbh'shed a most admirable and exhaustive narrative of 
the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, which at once took 
a hig-h rank among the histories of famous battles. He 
had about completed the manuscript of a similar work on 
the Battle of Monmouth, V/hich probably would have been 
published in another year. His separate monographs on 
historical subjects number a score or more, each, and all 
exhibiting the true spirit of historical research, as well as 
a pleasing literary style. In 1899 Princeton University 
conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. 

Genera] Siryker was most public-spirited, and was al- 
ways ready to take an active part in every movement cal- 
culated to benefit his tovvu or State, or the country at 
large. Since 1843 there had been a Trenton Battle Monu- 
ment Association, formed to secure the erection of a fit- 
ting memorial of Washington's famous capture of the 
Hessian garrison at Trenton, in 1776; but beyond the 
issue oi an address to the people of the State, with a pretty 
lithograph of the proposed shaft, it had accomplished lit- 
tle. On May 12, 1884, Gen. Stryker was elected Presi- 
dent of the Association, and it was mainly through his 
indefatigable exertions that a splendid monument was 
erected, at a cost of $60,000. It was one of the proudest 
days of his life when the completed shaft was dedicated, 
with fitting pomp, on December 26, 1891. 

Gen. Stryker v»'as elected President of the NeAV Jersey 
Historical Society, January 26, 1S97, and of the Society 
of the Cincinnati in Ne.w Jersey, July 4, 1896. He w2,j 
elected a Corresponding Member of the New-England 
Plistoric Genealogical Society, September 6, 1882; was a 
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of London; was 
one of the earliest members of the American Histori- 
cal Association; a member of the New York Historical 



Society; the Historical Society of Penrsylvania; the 
New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (since 
1889) ; and was an honorary or active member of most 
of the patriotic, hereditary and historical societies of this 
country. Only two or three days before his death, al- 
though suffering intcisely, he attended a meeting of the 
Princeton Historical Association, of which he was Vice- 
President, and m the success of which, as an offshoot of 
his alma mater, he was deeply interested. 

Such is the formal record of a busy life, full of duties 
faithfully, zealously, efficiently performed. But what 
words shall suffice to paint the m?n in m?.ke strangers 

. . . . see him as he moved. 
How modest, kiiiLDy. all-accomplished, wise, 
.... thrr' aJJ (his tract of years 
■Wearing the white flower of a blameless life. 

In person. General Stryker was nearly six feet in 
height, with an erect, military bearing, well proportioned, 
distinguished and strikingly handsome in appearance and 
manner. Naturally diffident, he was nevertheless the per- 
fection cf courtesy, and was a nost genial and delightful 
host or companion. His spaciou.^ and elegant i-csidence 
in Trenton was mainly a library, with the rest of the house 
built around it. Plere he had entertained many of the 
most noted men of the country: here he was most at his 
ease, and here he had surrounded himself with one of the 
larges. and most valuable collections of printed books and 
manuscripts relating to American history to be found iu 
any private library in the United States. 

For thi unrjuiet heart and brain, 
A use in measured language lies; 
The sad mechanic exercise, 
I^lke dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

For one who had been honored with his warm persona' 
friendship for nearly thirty years it is difficult to si-'H 
up the principal characteristics of General Stryker -A^ith 



8 



reasotiablc reserve. He was studious and scholarly in his 
tastes; was attractive and entertaiijins;- to a rare degree 
in social intercourse; was a sincere friend, and was an 
ideal Christian g-entleman. His death, on October 29th, 
1900, came as a ^reat personal bereavement to the people 
of New Jersey, and thousands gathered from all parts of 
the State to do honor to his memory, on the occasion of 
his funeral, which was a remarkable mililary pageant. 
By Special invitation of the New Jersey Legislature, the 
Society oif the Cincinnati in that State held their semi- 
annual meeting, February 22d, 1901, in the State House 
at Trenton, and made it a memorial service to their late 
president. On these various occasions it seemed as if 
there came spontaneously to the tongue of every speaker 
one epithet as peculiarly appropriate to the dead soldier, 
statesman and scholar : 

"Uti chevalier sans peur et sans reproche." 



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